1. Open Government Data in Italy:
state-of-the-art and future challenges
Raimondo Iemma
NEXA Center for Internet & Society
Politecnico di Torino
http://nexa.polito.it
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license 3.0 Unported.

2. NEXA Center vs OpenGovData
● LAPSI thematic network / www.lapsi-project.eu
● Open-DAI project / www.open-dai.eu
● EVPSI project / www.evpsi.org
● Piemonte Region
policy support (dati.piemonte.it)

3. What is Government Data?
Public Sector Information (Directive 98/2003/EC)
All information held by a public sector organisation, i.e. a
government department or any entity which is majority
owned and/or controlled by a Public Administration
→ as a direct outcome of its institutional mandate (e.g.
firm registry);
→ as a 'by-product' of the public task (e.g. list of postal
codes).

4. What does Open Data mean?
“A piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to
use, reuse, and redistribute it - subject only, at most, to
the requirement to attribute and share-alike”
[Open Data definition provided by the Open Knowledge
Foundation]
→ technological aspects, meaning that datasets are
machine readable and made available in open formats
[ref. '5-stars' model by Tim Berners-Lee];
→ legal aspects, meaning that datasets are not subject
to intellectual property rights or other legal constraints
preventing from copy, redistribution and reuse.

5. OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA
=
PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION
MADE AVAILABLE FOR REUSE
AS OPEN DATA

6. “Web entrepreneurs assemble and sell
content and applications and advertising,
based on data. With those efforts they
make our lives more convenient and they
keep authorities accountable.”
Neelie Kroes (Open Data strategy launch, 12th dec
2011)

7. The objectives of the PSI Directive are
to “facilitate the creation of Community-
wide information products and services
based on PSI, to enhance an effective
cross-border use of PSI by private
companies for added-value information
products and services and to limit
distortions of competition on the
Community market.”
PSI Directive, recital #25

8. Creation of services that reuse Open Gov
Data (integration of different sources,
mashups, etc.)

9. Some players use (Open) Gov Data as a
resource to provide services
- Business information
- Consultancy
- Business intelligence

10. No-profit projects, usually peer-produced
(and bottom-up), aimed at enhancing
transparency and efficiency.

11. And also:
- Live applications
- Visualisations
- Catalogues
- Data journalism
- (...)

12. As of now...
Some tangible commitment at European, national and
local level:
● EU 'Open Data Package'; EU open data portal; EU open
data license.
● Open Data web catalogues, e.g. http://data.gov.uk
● Open Data communities

13. As of now...
Still most of the PSI is not yet Open Data, for several
reasons:
● benefits are not perceived;
● ongoing agreements with third parties;
● funding schemes tbd;
● cultural barriers;
● ...

14. In Italy
● PSI principles adopted by Law (Dlgs 196 / 2006)
●PSI portals + Open Data strategies at different
administrative levels
● dati.gov.it (National platform)
● dati.piemonte.it (first regional portal)
● opendata.comune.fi.it (local level, Florence)
● dati.camera.it (Linked Open Data)
●Public consultation on the Digital Agenda, including
Open Data as a topic / http://adi.ideascale.com
● Map of the Italian legislation on Open Data
http://g.co/maps/xhz59
● Apps competition ended in April: www.appsforitaly.org

15. Open Gov Data in Italy: some
figures (as of April 2012)
Datastores
Licensing
Credits: dati.gov.it, FormezPA

16. 4 tips to knock on doors...
● Identify the data you need (and their holders)
● Reuse communities enable critical mass
● Ask for legal and technical interoperability:
→ licensing schemes (enabling reuse)
→ open formats
● Key concept: available for someone should mean
available for everyone
[some data have been already released to specific
players, e.g. Google for transport data]

17. Thank you!
Raimondo Iemma
NEXA Center for Internet & Society
Politecnico di Torino
http://nexa.polito.it
raimondo.iemma[AT]polito.it
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license 3.0 Unported.